Instrumentation

I like music with lots of parts.

I’ve always preferred music with lots of instrumentation. It’s fairly easy to make the typical four-part pop song (I mean, if that’s a talent you have. I obviously do not possess the ability to make music). But it’s way more impressive to me to have a fourteen-part pop song. I like hearing how the multiple parts combine into a whole.

This recently came up because of my Changeling: the Lost game. As previously mentioned, I’m using songs for each adventure. One of the songs I picked was Low’s “Words.” It’s one of the best slowcore songs ever. It’s moody and evocative and it’s pretty much perfect in its simplicity.

And yet, that wasn’t the version I went with. I used Halou’s cover, which has far more parts. There’s synthesizers, a more active drum part, and weird burbling electronic bits not present in the original. It’s far more layered and I just prefer it.

Now, one of the reasons I picked that version was because of the style of the music I was going for in this game. But I did debate which version to use far more than I did with any other song in my game (It was also somewhat ironic that that session ended up being mostly people talking). It just turns out that I prefer more instrumentation. Which might also explain why I have a penchant for industrial/electronic music in general – because they’re not restricted in how many sounds they can incorporate into any given song.